Luas Cross City (Line BX/D) [now open]

rolas

rolas wrote: »

.....

Did you even read that before using an old reg and posting it! :pac:

Hotblack Desiato

If it was up to me, that taxi driver would get a fixed penalty of €500, 6 points and his plate suspended for a month. Word would quickly get around and that would be the end of that problem.

rolas

MJohnston wrote: »

The Road Traffic Act you just posted did!

My post was in reply to post 4406 in which the poster raised the question "Who on earth said trams are not subject to the road traffic acts ?". I omitted the words "Answer is..." before quoting the relevant acts.

MJohnston

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

If it was up to me, that taxi driver would get a fixed penalty of €500, 6 points and his plate suspended for a month. Word would quickly get around and that would be the end of that problem.

On this note, I do think Luas front-facing camera footage should be automatically transferred as proof of driving offences.

rolas

rolas wrote: »

My post was in reply to post 4406 in which the poster raised the question "Who on earth said trams are not subject to the road traffic acts ?". I omitted the words "Answer is..." before quoting the relevant acts.

Try editing it and replacing the text (question) with the op's post, as it came across as the exact opposite.

Sam Russell

How could anyone have thought that longer trams would solve anything. An extra 10% of anything is no big deal - particularly when it comes to space in a tram.

If the standard tram was full before it got from Bride's Glen to Sandyford, would 10% more space mean it would get much further - perhaps as far as Ballally?

Also, unless the trams are given much higher priority, they will block up the whole place. They cannot get out of the way, and can only go one at a time, unlike buses and cars which can travel in convoy and change lanes quite unexpectedly.

MJohnston

Sam Russell wrote: »

How could anyone have thought that longer trams would solve anything. An extra 10% of anything is no big deal - particularly when it comes to space in a tram.

If the standard tram was full before it got from Bride's Glen to Sandyford, would 10% more space mean it would get much further - perhaps as far as Ballally?

Also, unless the trams are given much higher priority, they will block up the whole place. They cannot get out of the way, and can only go one at a time, unlike buses and cars which can travel in convoy and change lanes quite unexpectedly.

It's not just about the longer trams, it's the fact that there are 7 (?) new trams also. So frequency will increase too.

devnull

Sam Russell wrote: »

How could anyone have thought that longer trams would solve anything. An extra 10% of anything is no big deal - particularly when it comes to space in a tram.

Actually the new trams are 28% longer than the previously longest ones (55m vs 43m)

I once found a video on youtube about the Glasgow tram network and in the 1900s they had the worlds most frequent services, lots of small (short double decker bus sized) trams running literally one after the other with a frequency exceeding one a minute.
Sometimes lots of small ones have a better throughput than few big ones.
edit:

found it

Sam Russell

devnull wrote: »

Actually the new trams are 28% longer than the previously longest ones (55m vs 43m)

Ok, but even with the extra length, they are still under capacity for the demand, and are causing congestion. Reports are that they are full from Sandyford on, and therefore not meeting demand.

Would 10 normal trams perform better than 7 long trams?

devnull

Sam Russell wrote: »

Ok, but even with the extra length, they are still under capacity for the demand, and are causing congestion. Reports are that they are full from Sandyford on, and therefore not meeting demand.

To be honest that's a bit of a hyperbolic conclusion to come to already when just one 55m tram has been service in for a couple of days - the time to judge will be when all seven of them are in service and how they are coping with demand then.

Nobody expected a single 55m tram to sort all of the issues overnight.

Peregrine

Sam Russell wrote: »

How could anyone have thought that longer trams would solve anything. An extra 10% of anything is no big deal - particularly when it comes to space in a tram.

If the standard tram was full before it got from Bride's Glen to Sandyford, would 10% more space mean it would get much further - perhaps as far as Ballally?

Also, unless the trams are given much higher priority, they will block up the whole place. They cannot get out of the way, and can only go one at a time, unlike buses and cars which can travel in convoy and change lanes quite unexpectedly.

They? There has only been one additional tram in service.

The 55m trams will carry 60 additional passengers — a 20% increase in capacity. All trams will be extended to this capacity. The 7 additional trams would provide an increase in frequency at peak hours.

That would do wonders for capacity issues. I can't see how anyone who understands the above could argue otherwise.

MJohnston

devnull wrote: »

To be honest that's a bit of a hyperbolic conclusion to come to already when just one 55m tram has been service in for a couple of days - the time to judge will be when all seven of them are in service and how they are coping with demand then.

Nobody expected a single 55m tram to sort all of the issues overnight.

Not just the new 7x55m trams, but also then the refit of the existing 43m trams into 55m ones. And according to someone on here, another 8 long trams ordered already?

devnull

MJohnston wrote: »

Not just the new 7x55m trams, but also then the refit of the existing 43m trams into 55m ones. And according to someone on here, another 8 long trams ordered already?

Indeed - the end result is going to be an increase of several thousand per hour in capacity when you add the 7 extra trams and the extra capacity added to existing trams and that's before you even take into account the 8 more on order.

Chivito550

Somebody please enlighten me as to why the LUAS going northbound at 11:30 on a Saturday morning is stopping THREE times between Westmoreland and GPO, each for at least 1 minute, and takes a total of 5 minutes? Sort of defeats the purpose of the cross city when it is so slow.

trellheim

Stand up the front and watch the LUAS signals, observe where it gets stopped. In all fair honesty, it should not get priority at those junctions , it must cross a load of bus routes and another LUAS line, several pedestrian crossings , not to mention the private traffic.

When it was originally brought in, the Red line crossing O'Connell St had priority. This screwed up a bunch of Dublin Bus timetables, so now it has to wait its turn ; this is why you see LUAS waiting on both Abbey St sides.

Secondly, with the new longer trams, it must be able to get across the bridge in one go.

This, while not perfect, is the net result of throwing tram lines through that area without a *serious* plan.

MJohnston

I'll repeat: there was a serious plan, and then DCC abandoned it because they're afraid of the carparks and businesses. It can still be implemented as it was though.

Idbatterim

Is the red line not getting any capacity increases?

Middle Man

It looks like they're going to have to pedestrianise College Green with a total ban on all cars and bikes (taxis included) - none of these modes need to go past the front of Trinity College IMO. The only reservation I'd have about the pedestrianisation is that it may scupper any future plan to extended the proposed Luas Lucan Line from Dame Street towards the Ringsend area - a tramline should be seriously considered for the Grand Canal Docks area given the density of development there (both existing and proposed).

wakka12

Middle Man wrote: »

It looks like they're going to have to pedestrianise College Green with a total ban on all cars and bikes (taxis included) - none of these modes need to go past the front of Trinity College IMO. The only reservation I'd have about the pedestrianisation is that it may scupper any future plan to extended the proposed Luas Lucan Line from Dame Street towards the Ringsend area - a tramline should be seriously considered for the Grand Canal Docks area given the density of development there (both existing and proposed).

There is luas red line at the point though, and two new proposed bridges linking ringsend to grand canal, and grand canal dock to the other side of the liffey by the point. So I don't think the extension of the luas to ringsend is that necessary

Also red line is being extended to the glass bottle site at some stage

trellheim

'll repeat: there was a serious plan, and then DCC abandoned it because they're afraid of the carparks and businesses. It can still be implemented as it was though.

Even if you kill off all the through private traffic and taxis it will not fix the problem. The poster asked about Westmoreland to GPO. The LUAS will still not get priority over other more important modes ( Buses ) which also need to get through the core

Jamie2k9

trellheim wrote: »

Stand up the front and watch the LUAS signals, observe where it gets stopped. In all fair honesty, it should not get priority at those junctions , it must cross a load of bus routes and another LUAS line, several pedestrian crossings , not to mention the private traffic.

When it was originally brought in, the Red line crossing O'Connell St had priority. This screwed up a bunch of Dublin Bus timetables, so now it has to wait its turn ; this is why you see LUAS waiting on both Abbey St sides.

Secondly, with the new longer trams, it must be able to get across the bridge in one go.

This, while not perfect, is the net result of throwing tram lines through that area without a *serious* plan.

Within 30 seconds of O'Connell St traffic lights changing there is no traffic passing through yet they spend another 90 seconds on green. Luas may not get priority but the light sequence needs to be much quicker.

trellheim

Sorry Jamie... for what traffic ?

Jamie2k9

trellheim wrote: »

Sorry Jamie... for what traffic ?

Road traffic, they have clear lights for around 2 minutes each time but there is little traffic after 20-30 seconds. They need to adjust the times to maybe 1.5 minutes to speed up the Red Line without having any material impact on road traffic.

Sam Russell

The trams can only pass one at a time and take less time if they have priority - that is they pass at max (safe) speed through the junction. Whatever happens, if the tram comes every, say, 5 minutes and takes 30 seconds to pass a full tilt, and a min to pass from a standing start, then delaying the tram causes more congestion as that extra 30 secs is lost for good.

Cars, buses, taxis and bikes can all pass in a rush - you can get buses side by side and in convoy if you like, but not trams - they are strictly one at a time.

The lights must be phased to allow the trams unfettered priority to maximise the time allotted to all other traffic. Vehicles that jump lights and block yellow boxes must be hunted down and put off the road - as it is these that cause the congestion.

What ever happened to the traffic wardens?

Idbatterim

Electric and hopefully driverless at that stage, brt can serve the proposed Lucan route on the timescale we are talking. No more on street luas in city centre! I cannot wait to see the opposition from business if they plan on ripping up streets for years again!

Idbatterim

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

Road traffic, they have clear lights for around 2 minutes each time but there is little traffic after 20-30 seconds. They need to adjust the times to maybe 1.5 minutes to speed up the Red Line without having any material impact on road traffic.

in this "smart" age. Do they not have intelligent traffic management software and cameras, that can massively increase efficiency at junctions?

Jamie2k9

Idbatterim wrote: »

in this "smart" age. Do they not have intelligent traffic management software and cameras, that can massively increase efficiency at junctions?

They have the ability to have censers in place at major junctions to regulate road traffic but in the case of OCS, its simply just a timer of around 2m for traffic, 90 sec for pedestrians and 30 sec for trams.

trellheim

OK - now I see what you mean

That is to allow the bus traffic priority, wasn't the deal to allow trams the 40 seconds out of every 4 mins ( or something like that ) to cross OCS from Abbey st ? that was brought in after DB schedules fell apart back in the day - that allows Red line keep to frequency and DB stay moving

( or am I making this up - I'm sure I remember reading something like this )

If a tram presses the "I'm here" magic button you could have 20 buses stopped , or none ; there is no way without a lot of technology to tell.

Idbatterim

Jamie2k9 wrote: »

They have the ability to have censers in place at major junctions to regulate road traffic but in the case of OCS, its simply just a timer of around 2m for traffic, 90 sec for pedestrians and 30 sec for trams.

Surely when the trams are crossing ocb, they green light pedestrian crossing too?